The following analysis of the number of months of supply being held by flat rolled steel distributors is intended for SMU Premium level members. We are sharing this report with all of our readers during the first year of the index, after which it will be available for Premium members only. Shortly after the month […]
Oscar Night, so I will keep my comments short and sweet…maybe. I was told by one of our readers over the weekend that it would cost U.S. Steel $100 million to re-start Granite City. They wanted to know if that was correct? I did some checking with a number of analysts and was told that […]
There were no surprises in this month’s data as our SMU Price Momentum continued to reflect higher steel prices, and that expectation continues over the next 30 to 60 days. Our SMU Steel Buyers Sentiment Index is at, or very near, all-time highs for our index. Buyers and sellers of flat rolled steel are optimistic […]
The new year got off to a strong start for U.S. service centers, which reported over a 4 percent increase in carbon steel shipments and a 6 percent increase in carbon steel inventories in January, according to the Metals Service Center Institute’s January Metals Activity Report. Service center shipments of carbon plate saw a big […]
According to the Steel Market Update Service Center Flat Rolled Inventories Index, distributor inventories fell over the course of the month of January. Our index has distributors holding 2.8 months of supply as of the end of the month. This is 0.2 of a month’s supply lower than the 3 months of inventory held at […]
The following article on the hot rolled coil (HRC) steel and financial futures markets was written by Jack Marshall of Crunch Risk LLC. Here is how Jack saw trading over the past week: Steel The HR futures prices continue to grind higher in the near dates but have been lagging in the latter half of […]
The U.S. Department of Commerce released license data through the first 13 days of February that “suggests” foreign steel imports could be at the lowest levels seens in many years. The trend is for imports to barely exceed 2 million net tons, almost one-third lower than the 3 million tons that were reported for January. […]
First, tomorrow (Wednesday) is Valentine’s Day. The heat is turning up on Section 232 discussions as trade groups, individual businesses and congressmen lean in and provide their opinions to President Trump. He still sounds like he is going to do something “disruptive,” but we just don’t know for sure. As you can see from tonight’s […]
Another note regarding our SMU Service Center Flat Rolled Steel Inventories report. This information is provided first to those companies who supply data. So, if you are a service center or wholesaler selling prime flat rolled and/or plate products and you would like to participate as a confidential data provider, please contact me at John@SteelMarketUpdate.com. […]
U.S. service centers shipped 38.779 million tons of steel products in 2017, an increase of 3.8 percent compared with full-year 2016, according to the Metals Service Center Institute’s December Metals Activity Report. Shipments of carbon flat roll and plate saw single-digit increases over the prior year, while shipments of pipe and tube products saw a […]
Six months ago, Steel Market Update began collecting inventory data from a select group of flat rolled and plate steel service centers. Over time, the number of participating distributors has grown and we have been able to expedite the gathering of information from most (not all) of the service centers involved. Our initial goal is […]
So far this month, Steel Market Update has had a strong response rate from the service centers registered as inventories data providers. As of this afternoon, we had 79 percent of the steel service center data providers respond to our inquiry about their flat rolled and plate steel inventories. The headline number is flat rolled […]
Earlier today, Steel Market Update provided our “Flash Report” on flat rolled steel service center inventories to those distributors who are actively providing months of supply data to SMU. Our first Flash Report prompted three comments from the group that we would like to share with our readers: Service Center One: “This market is the […]
The year 2017 proved a bit “odd” as the threat of political action against foreign steel worked against the domestic steel mills. Early in the year, newly crowned President Trump authorized the U.S. Department of Commerce, led by former steel magnate Wilbur Ross, to investigate if the steel industry is essential to the U.S. for […]
Service centers continue to hold flat rolled inventories steady at 2.89 months of supply at the end of November, according to the proprietary Steel Market Update Service Center Inventories Index (SSII). This is now the third consecutive month we have found flat rolled steel distributors’ inventories close to the three months of supply level. Contrast […]
Twice per month, Steel Market Update (SMU) conducts an analysis of the flat rolled steel market and the trends that affect pricing, demand, etc. Each analysis is conducted via an email invitation to complete a questionnaire. SMU invites approximately 650 individuals who are active participants in the manufacturing, distribution, toll processing, trading and steel mill […]
Will the rest of the domestic steel mills announce new coating extras in first-quarter 2018, raising the price on galvanized steel? There was no clear consensus among members of the Heating, Air-conditioning, and Refrigeration Distributors International (HARDI) during their monthly conference call earlier today. Recent mill price announcements have stemmed the decline in galvanized prices, […]
Steel Market Update (SMU) has been working on developing and then expanding a new steel service center flat rolled steel inventories analysis. We are providing a sample of the analysis, which will be available initially to Premium level customers, as well as those service centers that participate by providing data to Steel Market Update. If […]
AK Steel reported a net loss of $5.8 million in the third quarter compared to net income of $50.9 million in Q3 2016. Results were impacted by $13.1 million in acquisition and debt refinancing costs and a LIFO charge of $49.0 million, compared to a LIFO credit of $24.2 million in the prior-year third quarter. […]
As we approach the end of October, SMU wanted to update our readers on the flat rolled inventory information we have been collecting from the steel service centers in the United States. At the end of July, we began gathering the number of months of supply being held at a select number of service centers. […]
Wholesaler/distributors who sell galvanized steel products to the HVAC market are waiting anxiously to see what happens to prices in the coming weeks. In the monthly steel conference call hosted today by the Heating, Air-conditioning, and Refrigeration Distributors International, HARDI members asked two key questions: Will the mills be able to collect the flat roll […]
Steel Market Update (SMU) has a proprietary model that analyzes the Metals Service Center Institute (MSCI) carbon flat rolled shipment and inventory data, from which we calculate whether distributor inventories are in Excess/Balance/Deficit. We ended the month of August with steel service center inventories as essentially balanced (-26,000 tons). The month of September saw a […]
September steel shipments by U.S. service centers were essentially unchanged from September 2016. U.S. steel inventories increased on a year-over-year basis for the first time since August 2015, stated the Metals Service Center Institute in its September Metals Activity Report. U.S. service center shipments of all steel products in September totaled 3.043 million tons, about […]
One of the questions we get regularly is what are steel buyers and sellers of steel saying about their business (demand) and inventory levels? Over this past week, Steel Market Update spoke with quite a few companies and asked them how they were seeing business and if their company was building flat rolled or steel […]
One of the questions we get regularly is what are steel buyers and sellers of steel saying about their business (demand) and inventory levels? Over this past week, Steel Market Update spoke with quite a few companies and asked them how they were seeing business and if their company was building flat rolled or steel […]
I have been working on two major projects today: flat rolled and plate pricing for our steel index and flat rolled steel service center inventories as of the end of September. I finished the first project on pricing, which showed mixed results with some price erosion on a couple of items and stable prices on […]
SMU Price Momentum Indicator is now at “lower,” meaning flat rolled steel spot prices are expected to move lower over the next 30 to 60 days. Steel prices have begun to retreat with benchmark hot rolled beginning the month at $630 per ton ($31.50/cwt) and ending the month down $20 to $610 per ton ($30.50/cwt). […]
I am in Chicago and will be here until Tuesday when I make my way to Fort Wayne, Ind., to conduct one of our Steel 101 workshops. A special thank you to SDI and Paragon Steel for allowing our workshop to tour each of their plants. This workshop has been sold out for a number […]
On Friday, Steel Market Update (SMU) adjusted our Price Momentum Indicator to Lower from Neutral. It is our opinion that flat rolled steel prices will move lower over the next 30 days for the following 10 reasons: First, when the head of commercial of a domestic steel mill tells SMU that “transaction pricing cannot go […]
For the second month in a row, Steel Market Update (SMU) did reasonably well with our forecast for August shipments, inventories and where we thought the Apparent Deficit/Excess for service center carbon flat rolled inventories would be at the end of August. SMU forecast shipments of hot rolled, cold rolled and coated steels would total […]